Fuel Gauge Inop VFR Day

"George Patterson" wrote in message
news:mMA4f.3358$iI.906@trndny06...
I still think its better to run out in a car, than a plane, but maybe
I'm just too cautious.

If you run out of gas in a car, you pull over to the side of the road,
right?

Well, if you run out in a plane, you do exactly the same thing. Only the
road is a few thousand feet below you. :-)

Perhaps your tongue is in cheek? I think that's what the smiley means.

There is still some validity to the previous statement. In a car, one is
nearly always in an environment where a safe place to come to a stop has
been provided. Even if not, simply rolling to a stop in one's lane is
reasonably safe (notwithstanding the idiot coming up behind you not paying
any attention to what's in the road).

Yes, in an airplane one can simply glide to a safe landing. But that
presumes a safe landing site, and in any case it's very unlikely to be a
landing site previous prepared to accomodate an airplane. It may be safe
enough, but it won't likely be designed for an airplane to use.

I would agree that, if I had to choose between running out of gas in a car
and running out of gas in an airplane, that I'd choose the car every time
(absent any specific knowledge of the situation, of course...I'll choose
running out of gas in an airplane within gliding distance of an airport over
running out of gas in a car just in time for the car to roll to a stop on
some train tracks, with the 70mph commuter due in 15 seconds ).

Pete